• When you want to encourage someone to do his best, whether an employee, friend or a family member, a motivational gift can reward past performance and help ensure future good work. Any motivational gift serves as a tangible reminder to strive for excellence, but presenting a memorable, one-of-a-kind gift may make your recipient take the message more readily to heart.
  
  

Up, Up and Away

• Offer to send your best-performing employees skyward in a hot air balloon or a blimp ride. Give them the day off from work and take them to the location where they will board the balloon. You'll give them a panoramic view of the city in which they work while elevating them above their fellow employees who didn't reach the same heights in performance.
  
  

Inspirational Booklet

• Put together a booklet of pages filled with motivational and inspirational statements that you complete with personal details. These could include showcasing how the recipient taught you well, made contributions to the workplace or just possesses admirable qualities you want to recognize. For example, you complete the sentence that begins, "You made us great," or "Your many contributions," or "You've taught me so much," then give it to a mentor, teacher or parent.
  
  

Customized Superhero

• Reward an exceptional employee by taking her to a facility to have her head and face scanned, then turn her image into a small doll, action figure or bobblehead figurine. This will recognize her as a "superhero" at work. Ask her to leave the personalized figure on her desk so she will always be at the work site, so to speak, even when she is away from work.